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11/15/2013

EUFF Review: 'Eat Sleep Die'

Eat Sleep Die (Äta
sova dö)

(Sweden, 104 min.)

Written and directed by Gabriela Pichler

Starring: Nermina Lukač, Milan Dragišić

If Swedish censors seek to rate films on the Bechdel test,
then Eat Sleep Die should pass with
flying colours. Not only does the film star a headstrong protagonist who seeks
agency and security over a blond boyfriend, but she also conveys a relevant
tale about growing up in an age of shrinking opportunities by interacting with
her fellow working class women. Eat Sleep
Die, Sweden’s offering at this year’s European Union Film Festival, should
easily strike a chord with viewers from younger generations. The film, which
also happens to be Sweden’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film
at this year’s Academy Awards, is a timely story about a working class youth in
today’s tricky economy. The toll of unemployment is just one factor that should
let Eat Sleep Die play just as well
on this side of the globe as it might in the EU. This feature debut by Gabriela
Pichler is a great choice for veterans of the EUFF and new cinephiles alike.

Eat Sleep Die is
the story of a young labourer named Raša, played by Nermina Lukač, who works at
a Swedish food factory to support herself and her father, played by Milan
Dragišić. It comes as a major blow to Raša when she is among the employees to
get the sack during a round of layoffs at the food factory. It doesn’t seem
right that Raša is put out, since she is easily the fastest worker among those packing
lettuce into plastic containers at the factory. She does more than double the
volume of work than most of her colleagues who keep their jobs.

Unemployment can be demoralizing and emotionally exhausting,
as anyone who has ever experienced it might know, so Raša is rightfully at a
loss when she is let go. Eat Sleep Die
offers a poignant, sobering look at the prospects for youth in today’s economy.
The dire forecast for Raša is doubly compounded because she and her father are
Muslim Balkan immigrants. She has no high school diploma and no additional
family to support them. Currents of xenophobia ripple through the round of
layoffs, at least in Raša’s eyes, so Eat
Sleep Die undercuts the thread of optimism that movies often find in
escape. Life will not be better elsewhere—although it’s probably better in
Sweden than it was in the situation from which the family fled—and her only
outlook is to migrate to a neighbouring town in hopes of menial labour while
her father returns home for some transient job.

Eat Sleep Die feels
like it has the pulse of the moment. Director Gabriela Pichler, making her
feature debut as a director, draws on much of her own experiences as a factory
worker in provincial Sweden born into a family of immigrants, captures the clash
of contradictions a young personal faces while trying to find themself in a
country that is rapidly changing. Pichler writes Raša as a flawed and defiant
heroine--she’s a woman with the brusque anything-is-possible naïveté of youth. Eat Sleep Die tells of a generation of
working class citizens for whom the pursuit of a dream is hardly an option.
They’re lucky if the secure a job packing fresh salad for city dwellers to eat
at lunch.

There’s an energy to Eat
Sleep Die that could only come from an artist with a strong sense of the
reality that serves as her fiction. Pichler captures the film with a flair of
new wave minimalism that uses the portability and intimacy of handheld camera
work to get up close and personal with its subjects. The involving,
revitalizing cinematography echoes some of the arresting work that has put the
austere realism of emergent European filmmakers at the forefront of world
cinema. (Cristian Mungiu, for example.) Pichler also gets solid, honest
performances from a cast of mostly non-professional actors and debut
performers. Lukač gives an honest and natural performance as the spunky Raša.

Eat, Sleep, Die
seems to take place a world apart from the sleek Sweden of Lisbeth Salander and
IKEA furniture. The film both depicts and contributes to a country in midst of
redefinition. There’s hope to be found in the story of Eat Sleep Die, though, as Pichler ends the film just as it begins:
with a party. There’s something to celebrate in having the freedom to go
anywhere and do anything with one’s life. Finding the means and opportunity is
another matter. Embodied in the loving, but testy relationship between Raša and
her father, this story of a girl who stands to lose the one constant in her
life if she chooses to survive is a compelling film that speaks to the heart of
a generation.

Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)

Eat, Sleep, Die screens at the European Union Film Festival in
Ottawa on Nov. 22nd at 7:00 pm.